Out!

by JL Merrow

  Even the weather was sodding mocking him. Patrick’s anger burned brighter than the daffs for a mo, then fizzled out in a puff of self-knowledge. Get over yourself, Owen. He was acting like a kid who’d been promised sweeties and had ’em snatched away at the last minute—and cheers, Dad, for that little memory.

  Christ, though. Of all the reasons to be turned down… Mark had to see he was wrong, didn’t he? Patrick might not know Fen well, but there was no teenager on earth who liked their parents treating them like a little kid. Or lying to them, for that matter.

  Patrick was glad he’d walked down to Mark’s. The walk back up The Hill was clearing his head. It still pissed him off, but yeah, he was prepared to admit there might be a bit of bruised ego going on there. If he was brutally honest, he’d probably had less than his fair share of rejection in the past. He scrubbed up all right and he made an effort with his appearance, and blokes seemed to appreciate it. Girls too.

  Course, that’d been when he’d still been going clubbing. He couldn’t be arsed with it much these days—what was the point of making all the effort to pull someone for a night when you already knew they wouldn’t want you around next morning? Might as well just save time and go on Grindr. Yeah, there was plenty of rejection to be had there, if someone else came along who was better-looking, better hung or whatever, but it didn’t mean anything apart from, Christ, some of these blokes were shallow.

  Mark turning him down, though… That hurt. And it was just so bloody stupid, because Mark liked him. Patrick knew he did. He just didn’t think Patrick was worth the bother of getting over his stupid issues.

  It couldn’t have been that different when he was growing up. Could it?

  Reaching home, Patrick opened the door and kicked off his shoes on the mat. Mum was upstairs—he could hear her singing along to the CD player. Ironing, then. She’d tried doing it in front of the telly but had kept scorching the clothes every time EastEnders got really gripping, so she just played music these days. He stood at the foot of the stairs listening for a mo, trying to work out what she was listening to. It wasn’t easy. Mum’s voice was way louder than the music, but she only hit about one note in three, and the words weren’t always in the right order either.

  Patrick gave up with a smile. He liked hearing Mum sing. She’d never really done it when he’d been little. He padded into the kitchen and put the kettle on.

  By the time it was about to boil, Mum had come downstairs.

  “Cup of tea?” Patrick asked her, already getting out the mugs.

  “Ooh, cheers, love. Could murder one.”

  He stirred in milk and handed over one of the mugs, then leaned back against the counter, cradling his own mug in his hands. “Mum, you busy?”

  “Nothing I wouldn’t rather put off anyhow. What is it, love?” She gave him a piercing look over the rim of her mug.

  Patrick sighed. “When you were growing up, what was it like for gay kids?”

  “Oh Lord. If it’s that kind of thing, I want to sit down. I’ve been on my feet all morning with that ironing.”

  Patrick wasn’t moved by her look of martyrdom. “Mum, I did most of it before I went out. There were about three of your tops left and a couple of hankies.”

  “So? Those tops can be fiddly.” She led the way through to the living room and sank down on the sofa with an oof.

  Patrick sat down on the other end and stretched out his legs, trying to make himself relax. “Yeah, right. So anyway—gay kids when you were a teenager?”

  Mum wrinkled her nose. “Didn’t really know any. Least, I didn’t know I knew them. No one was out back then. Not in Brentwood, anyway. Even George Michael wasn’t out back then. I used to really fancy him too. Had his poster up on my bedroom wall.” Her eyes turned scarily dreamy.

  “Mum, focus?”

  “Well, what do you want to know?

  “Just—look, say you were a lesbian, all right? Back then I mean. What do you reckon it’d have been like?”

  “Well, I dunno, do I?” Mum pursed her lips. “I’d have got more O Levels, maybe? Wouldn’t have spent all my time mooning around after boys.”

  “Yeah, but Mum, you’d have been mooning around after girls.”

  “God, I hope not. They were a right load of tarts at my school. Why d’you think I haven’t kept in touch?” She looked at Patrick and sighed. “Look, it just wasn’t talked about then. Not like it is these days. I mean, it wasn’t like it is now, with gay people on the telly and that. Well, all right, they were, but it was only camp comedians and that sort of thing. And nobody talked about them actually being gay. Not to kids, anyway.”

  “Yeah, but there were films and stuff, weren’t there? Hang on.” Patrick got up and rummaged through their DVD collection, which had got too big for the shelf unit and spilled over into a pile on the floor. “Here you go. My Beautiful Laundrette, 1985. You were still at school then, weren’t you?”

  “Well, yeah, but that was a film. It wasn’t real life. Not like EastEnders or something. You’ve got to remember, love, in those days it was two steps forward and one step back. I mean, Section 28 must have been around that time. You know—that law where schools weren’t allowed to say being gay was all right.”

  “Yeah. I know.” Patrick stared at the cover of the DVD in his hands. Gordon Warnecke and Daniel Day-Lewis with a bad bleach job stared back at him, the Asian guy defiant but the white guy with a sardonic twist to his mouth. Patrick hadn’t watched the film in years, but now it was coming back to him. Thatcher’s Britain, AIDS hysteria, everyone out to make as much money as they could and sod everybody else. The fashions and the attitudes. It’d seemed like a history lesson when Mum had sat him down to watch it.

  But Mark… Christ, Mark had lived through this.

  Shit. Age wasn’t just a number, was it?

  Mum’s voice broke into his thoughts. “Am I not supposed to guess this is about your mature bloke?”

  Patrick looked round at her, startled. “No?”

  “Dream on, love. I may be old, but I’m not daft. So are you seeing him?”

  “Turned me down, didn’t he?” Patrick stared at the telly. It’d have been a lot more interesting if they’d switched it on.

  “Turned you down? Turned you down? Who the bloody hell does he think he is, then? God’s gift to gay men?”

  “Nah. He’s not out. Doesn’t wanna be. Not even sure he wants to be gay, for that matter.”

  “That’s just… Oh.”

  Patrick looked round. “Oh, what?”

  Mum’s eyes had gone wide, and she was looking serious. “Do you reckon he had something bad happen to him when he was young? Is that what this is all about?”

  Okay, that hit with an unpleasant jolt to the chest. Patrick hadn’t even thought of that. Christ, how bloody oblivious could he be? People still got gay-bashed these days—how much worse must it have been back when pretty much everyone seemed to have been on the side of the gay-bashers?

  “Love?” Mum sounded concerned. How long had he been silent?

  “Uh, yeah. Sorry. Nah, it was just some stuff he said.” Christ, now he was feeling guilty for getting so pissed off at Mark. “You know. About things being different when he was young.”

  “Well, that’s it, innit?” Mum took a slurp of tea. “That’s why these age gap things don’t always work out. It’s nothing to do with ’em getting all wrinkled and saggy—”

  “Cheers for the image, Mum.”

  “—it’s more about having different outlooks on stuff. If you love ’em, you don’t care about the looks, but it’s a bit harder if you can’t see eye to eye on things.”

  “Yeah, but fourteen years… Can it really make that much of a difference?”

  Mum shrugged. “’S up to you, innit? You and him. You’ve just got to work it out between you.”

  * * * * *

&nb
sp; Patrick still hadn’t worked out what to do about Mark come Monday morning. He’d thought about talking to someone else about it, Heather maybe, but honestly, what did she know? Her bloke, Chris, was the same age she was and not exactly the most grown-up bloke on the planet.

  It made it hard to concentrate on work. Not that the correspondence was exactly riveting. Most people seemed to think organising a fun run was just a matter of putting up a poster and getting people to sign up for it, but in fact there were a shed-load of rules and regulations to deal with. Course, he’d dealt with most of the big stuff already—like walking out the route, getting permission from landowners and the council, organising first-aiders, doing a risk analysis and sorting out insurance—but there was still a fair bit to do. Like getting the sponsors to actually hand over the money they’d promised, hiring a bouncy slide for the kiddies, and organising delivery of donated drinks. Plus the walkie-talkies had gone walkies since last time, which meant nearly a dozen phone calls until he tracked down who’d borrowed them and forgotten to return them.

  Patrick said his good-byes to a very apologetic vicar, put the phone down and sat back, rolling his shoulders. Christ, it’d got late. No wonder his stomach was rumbling. He turned to Lex, who was knee-deep in the finishers’ medals they’d be handing out to the kiddies.

  “Sod it. Fancy lunch at the caff? I’m paying.”

  Lex looked doubtful. “I brung a salad.”

  “So? You can leave it in the fridge for tomorrow’s lunch.”

  “Nah, won’t keep till tomorrow. ’S organic. That stuff goes off if you look at it funny. But I s’pose I could take it home and have it for my tea. Just for you.”

  Patrick grinned. “And here was me thinking I was doing you a favour. Come on, then, before all the tables fill up.” They grabbed their jackets and headed out, Patrick making sure to lock the door behind them ’cos some shites would rob anyone. The village shops all had to have their charity boxes on chains now, which pissed him off something chronic.

  It was only a short walk to the café. Patrick was just about to follow Lex inside when Mark came round the corner.

  And it was just daft, ’cos if he’d only kept going, he’d have been fine, safe in the café and reading the menu before Mark even noticed he’d been there, but Patrick just had to stop dead on the doorstep and stare long enough for Mark to look up, didn’t he?

  It was well awkward. Patrick nodded to him.

  Mark nodded back. His smile flickered but ultimately failed to launch. Facial expressions aside, he was looking good. Way too good for Patrick’s peace of mind. Christ, he wished the pain in his chest would go away. Or at least, this weird paralysis would lift and he’d be able to get out of there.

  Mark opened his mouth, closed it again and looked at his shoes.

  Then, thank God, someone came out of the café, pushed past Patrick and broke the spell. Feeling like an idiot, Patrick stomped inside where Lex was waiting, eyes wide.

  “That your bloke?”

  “No, and he’s not likely to be.” Patrick tried to keep it light, keep the hurt out of his voice. Maybe he overdid it. “But yeah, that was Mark Nugent.”

  He pulled out a chair from the nearest empty table—make that the only empty table; good job he hadn’t pratted around on the doorstep any longer, or they’d have been out of luck—and they both sat down.

  Lex grabbed the menu from between the ketchup bottle and the brown sauce, and frowned. “But he looks all right. I thought he’d be older. Looks sad, though. Oi, what happened? He try it on and you turned him down?”

  “No. Try the other way around.” Patrick made grabby hands at the menu. “Come on, hand that over. You know you always get the same thing.”

  “So? I like to check if they’ve changed anything.” Lex gave the clearly not brand-new card a glance and passed it over. “What, he turned you down? You sure you heard him right? Is he straight? Or, like, ace or something?”

  “Nah, just…” Patrick ran his hand over his hair. “Closeted. Doesn’t want his daughter to know he’s queer.”

  “That’s shitty.”

  The waitress came over to take their order at that point, so Patrick had to bite his tongue on his angry gut reaction to that. He snapped out an order for a chicken wrap and a cup of tea and waited impatiently while Lex faffed around over drinks, thrown by them having run out of ginger beer.

  “Mark’s just trying to give his daughter a stable home,” he said firmly when they’d finally been left in peace. “She’s been going through a rough patch, getting into trouble. He doesn’t wanna risk her going off the rails again if she takes it wrong. And it’s not so easy for older blokes, all right?”

  Lex leaned back. “Sor-ry. Jeez.”

  Patrick grimaced. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to go on at you. Just… Ah, I dunno. S’pose I’m feeling guilty for going off on him about it. Been thinking about it, and I s’pose I see his point. He lived through some rough times for gay people. Well, tougher than now, anyhow. You know, back in the eighties.”

  “Yeah, but he’s not living in them now.” Lex’s face was a lot harder than Patrick would’ve expected if their tone hadn’t clued him in.

  “Meaning?” he asked neutrally.

  “Meaning yeah, he’s gay, but he’s also a cis white male, and I bet he’s got good health and plenty of money. Just feels a bit first-world problem to me, all this bloody angsting over whether his daughter’s gonna get the sulks if he tells her he’s gay.”

  Patrick could see Lex’s point. He’d met Lex’s dad, one time Lex had been trying to drag the bloke home from the pub before he passed out, and within five bloody minutes, the bastard had made some stupid crack about having “three kids—one of each” with Lex standing right there.

  “Look, I get what you’re saying. Just… Everyone’s different, you know? It might not seem like a big deal to you, but it does to him, all right?” He gave a rueful smile. “Thought you liked him, anyway?”

  “Yeah, I did. Gone off him a bit now I know he’s a whiner.” Lex smiled back, which took the sting out of it.

  “He’s not a whiner,” Patrick protested.

  “Is.”

  “Isn’t.”

  “Is.”

  “Is—” Patrick broke off as their food arrived. “Uh, cheers.”

  The waitress, who, fair dues, was old enough to be Patrick’s mum and had probably seen it all before, smirked. “We’ve got some colouring sheets and crayons if you’d like ’em. Just saying.” She swished away.

  Lex cracked up.

  A bit hot under the collar, Patrick gave Lex a stern look. “Do you want me to walk out and leave you with the bill?”

  “You’d never. Not in, like, a zillion trillion years.”

  “Oh, yeah? Try me.”

  “Go on, then. Walk out. See if I care.” Lex sat back in their chair and made shooing gestures. “Go on. Bye. See ya.”

  Patrick had to laugh. “God, I hate you sometimes.”

  “Nah, you don’t. You lurve me. You wanna marry me.”

  “What, and have your hairy biker bloke coming after me with a monkey wrench? How’s that going, anyway?”

  “S’good,” Lex said around a mouthful of bean burger.

  “Yeah? You met his mates yet?”

  “Nah. He says he wants to keep me all for himself.”

  Lex grinned, but Patrick wasn’t bloody smiling. It sounded well dodgy to him. “So when do I get to meet him?”

  “Dunno. Not sure what we’re doing next weekend.”

  “What, does his mum not let him out on a school night?”

  “Nah, he’s on call out this week, so if I see him, I’ll be going round to his.” Lex put down the bean burger, exactly half eaten, and started on the chips. “You want some of these?”

  “Go on, then,” Patrick said, and scooped around half of t
hem off the proffered plate, then dumped a shed-load of ketchup on top.

  “You know that stuff’s, like, three hundred percent sugar?”

  “Yep, and that’s why it tastes so nice. So what’s he do for a living, your bloke?”

  “Locksmith. He’s teaching me how to crack a safe. It’s way harder than it looks on the telly.”

  Patrick laughed. “I guess that could be a useful life skill. So he does emergency stuff, does he? Better get me one of his cards for the next time Mum breaks her key in the lock.”

  Lex gave him a sly look. “Or the next time you lock up the office and lose the keys.”

  “Hey, that was one time, all right? And I found ’em again, didn’t I?”

  “Eventually.”

  “I get no respect. None at all.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ellen’s visit on Sunday had turned out both better and worse than Mark had feared. She quite clearly hadn’t believed him about Patrick being just a friend—all the more painful when he was quietly panicking that they wouldn’t even be that anymore.

  “We agreed you weren’t going to do this,” she ground out sotto voce. She’d had her light brown hair cropped even shorter since the last time he’d seen her, and the spikiness of it certainly added to the impression of tightly wound anger. She looked like a hedgehog that had just got home from a hard day’s rooting for slugs to find its favourite hedge had been replaced with a barbed wire fence. “Florence needs stability, not even more upheaval.”

  “This? There is no this,” Mark hissed in reply, his eyes on the stairs in case Fen had heard her mother arriving and was even now hurtling down to have her ears sullied by her parents arguing. Again. “Patrick is a friend. From a charity organisation.”